Five Indianapolis police officers are facing criminal charges over the alleged misuse of automated licence plate readers (ALPRs), adding to a growing series of cases involving law enforcement's use of Flock's surveillance technology.
Prosecutors have accused the officers of using the systems to conduct unauthorised searches and track private citizens.
Rising Wave of Police Misuse
Court records made public on Wednesday showed that five Indianapolis police officers face charges of fraud and official misconduct over their alleged misuse of ALPRs.
Among the accused is officer Jonathan Schultz, an 18-year veteran, who allegedly used 300 cameras supplied by Flock to track multiple women — including his former wife and a fitness class acquaintance from 2023 — according to ABC News.
Meanwhile, the Franklin County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina cut ties with Flock and terminated an experienced detective who was caught using the devices to track the movements of a private citizen.
Simultaneously, municipal leaders in San Jose, California, have called for tighter restrictions on law enforcement access to ALPR databases after dismissing an officer who shared tracking information with a cousin who had been accused of domestic violence.
Scale of National Surveillance
The Indianapolis cases are among the latest examples of law enforcement misuse of automated licence plate readers, with similar incidents reported in other parts of the US.
Flock's monitoring grid has expanded to more than 140,000 cameras nationwide, while the Institute for Justice has documented at least 244 separate cases of police abuse involving ALPR technology.
The figure covers ALPR abuse more broadly and should not be interpreted as 244 cases involving Flock specifically.
The growing number of documented cases has raised questions about how law enforcement agencies monitor access to increasingly interconnected surveillance systems.
Pushing Past Local Boundaries
Officers have been caught using plate scanners for an endless variety of misconduct, from stalking romantic partners and punishing critics to running unauthorised checks for immigration agents, keeping tabs on activists, harassing colleagues, helping suspected abusers find domestic violence victims, tracking Muslims heading to mosques, and simply curing boredom.
'Unfortunately, we have seen abuse of automated license plate readers for almost as long as they have existed,' senior investigative researcher for the Electronic Frontier Foundation Beryl Lipton said in an interview, after 10 officers from the Chicago area were caught abusing ALPRs on separate occasions in late August.
'Previously, the systems weren't as connected as they are,' Lipton said of Flock's expansive web of interconnected cameras. 'Now that abuse can really take place at scale across state lines.'
Accountability Gap and Oversight
The cases have prompted renewed scrutiny of how police departments oversee access to ALPR systems and how technology companies' surveillance infrastructure is used by law enforcement.
As these networks continue expanding across communities nationwide, the mounting trail of criminal charges and misconduct cases highlights questions over oversight. Technology companies may build the infrastructure, but law enforcement agencies remain responsible for controlling how officers access and use the systems.
The recent cases have also prompted calls for stronger safeguards and independent auditing to identify unauthorised searches and prevent further misuse of sensitive location data.
